A currated list of good internet radio stations that are accessible via apps like Winamp and probably other things like hardware devices. These are all free to listen to, non-geofenced and preferably ad free, though there can be exceptions if the ads aren't shitty. The main criteria I have is "do I enjoy listening to it?".
Stations specializing in ambient, chillout, nature sounds, etc. "Slow Music for Fast Times".
Darkwave, goth, industrial. Spooky music.
Stations specializing in electronic music like drum & bass, house, techno, etc. A lot of these started off as pirate stations in the UK.
German internet radio, wide variety of formats.
Homepage: https://www.fluxfm.de/
Illegally broadcast radio. The internet streams are legal, of course, but the FCC or whatever local authority there is does not like these stations' real world broadcasts. Also includes former pirate stations that have gone legit.
Public, Community and Non-Profit Radio Stations in the US and other places. I live in Colorado, so we have all the local ones represented here along with famous ones like KEXP in Seattle and WFMU in New Jersey.
California based open format internet radio, with a variety of subfeeds devoted to things like world music and rock.
Homepage: https://radioparadise.com/home
Rekt specializes in synthwave and related music genres.
Homepage: https://rekt.network/
San Francisco based, listener supported radio in various formats. This site was my main inspiration for curating all of this.
Homepage: https://somafm.com/
Legendary open format public radio from New Jersey. They play almost anything but are especially famed for niche genres like garage rock, exotica and experimental music.
Hompage: https://wfmu.org/
Files in here are not working. They might be able to be made to work or they might start working again at some point. Whenever I checked they weren't and I couldn't easily update them. Please let me know if you have updates for them. The BBC used to allow streaming via mp3 of all their stations, but appear to have geofenced that and require you to use their website now if you're outside of the UK. Wankers.
I'd like to add more stations that are similar to this list. Emphasis on electronic, ambient, open format, lounge/exotica, world music and public media. Preferably no commercials but will allow them if they aren't annoying.
I am not interested in top 40, classic rock or anything that can be heard on regular commercial radio. Absolutely no I Heart Radio, Clear Channel killed FM, so fuck them. If there's streams for the BBC that work outside of the UK, let me know and I'll include them. Foreign language is fine if it's mostly music. If there are large ammounts of talk, I'm not that interested. No interest in any kind of political talk radio, especially garbage like Infowars. I do like harmless kook stuff like Art Bell or public radio type news/talk though.
I'm not an audiophile but mp3 below 128k is unlistenable to me except for talk. Preferably at least 128k aac, but higher bitrate mp3 is also fine.
Here are some things online that you might also like:
- Hearts of Space - https://v4.hos.com/home
- Radio Garden - https://radio.garden/
- MyNoise - https://mynoise.net/
- The Perfumed Garden - unofficial archive of John Peel BBC broadcasts - https://theperfumedgarden.blogspot.com/
- Negativland's Over the Edge Radio - https://archive.org/details/ote